Articles Tagged With: "bioteams"

An excellent article on Bioteams by Doug Kirkpatrick, US Partner at NuFocus Strategic Group concludes: "The power and elegance of bioteaming is indisputable. Whether organizational leaders will detach themselves from the perceived security blanket of traditional, artificial hierarchy in order to fully experience that power is another question entirely?"

I have written quite a lot about the importance of a team's beliefs on their performance and have published some modest research into the beliefs which differentiate 'high performing' teams from other teams. Until today I have not published the questionnaire which underpinned this research. I am now making this questionnaire available here and also, on request, a free spreadsheet tool to help you 'number crunch' and analyse the results from using the beliefs questionnaire with your own teams.

What do we mean by "Teamwork"? We often talk about Teamwork as if its a singular thing however in nature there are 4 different types - each of which have a very precise meaning. I call these Solowork, Crowdwork, Groupwork and Teamwork itself. An effective team knows how and when to use each type - an ineffective team only uses one!

I have just purchased John Kotter's new book XLR8 ("Accelerate") which as well as reworking his previous excellent thinking on change introduces two concepts which resonate with my work - The Dual Operating System and The Big Opportunity. Lets briefly look at each of them.

I am delighted to be able to publish a new Bioteams article in the Summer 2014 edition of The Henry Ford Magazine entitled "Teams in Nature". The article summarises the differences between human teams and natures teams in three critical areas: Communications, Leadership and Scalability.

Nature has a way of automatically right-sizing a group to tackle the job at hand. Just like the Russian Matryoshka Dolls (dolls within dolls), small groups link into bigger ones, which in turn link into still bigger ones. In this follow-up article to "Why penguins have no commanding officer" and "Did ants invent the perfect system for communicating via mobile technology?", Ken Thompson writing for NESTA explores what we can learn about teamwork and group/community size from nature's most successful teams.

Fabio Padilla from Brazil has written a very interesting review of Bioteams for his MBA thesis at the Universidade Católica de Brasilia - Universa. Fabio has very kindly allowed me to republish a summary of his conclusions which he has translated from the original Portuguese.

The late Stephen Covey always reminded us that "the main thing was to keep the main thing the main thing !" However when you think about "Change Management" you could be excused for thinking its all about detailed road maps and large tomes of procedures and checklists. These are all important but sometimes they can also sadly distract from the whole point of the exercise. To stop you falling into this trap I offer you my easy to remember 4 point mental checklist based on the human body to help you constantly check that you have not been "detail distracted"!

Many business models used by enterprises have never been calibrated using the organisation's own historical data which seriously undermines their usefulness. This is generally not due to the lack of historical data but because of the way the models have been designed. So can you build business models which do not suffer from this fatal flaw? Absolutely!

It has been said that how a team decides how to decide is the most important decision it will make. I am pleased to feature a very interesting article by Jamie @ THOUGHT Stream which suggests practical tips for engaging your team, getting buy-in and how to use the Bioteams Action Zones and Rules to help.

I have been invited to participate in a software beta test which is using an online tool called Trello to coordinate test feedback. Trello is very simple and powerful and sits halfway between a forum and a wiki. It is a great tool for capturing and structuring feedback from a community in a really easy way and very compatible with a bioteams style of working.

You might not have noticed but a few weeks back I launched my bioteams microblog for short articles you can read in under a minute. It also suits me when I am travelling and want to post via mobile phone. I have been busy posting away each day and there are already lots of articles so please head over, check it out and let me know what you think.

Most online communities are simply online ghost towns. People register, get their login details, visit once, decide its not for them and never return. This pattern is repeated over and over. Maybe online communities are not for you? Here is how to decide, and if you still want one - here is how to avoid the most obvious mistakes.

Learned Optimism is an approach to self-improvement invented by American psychologist, Doctor Martin Seligman and described in his book, Learned Optimism (1990). Seligman argues for the benefits of an optimistic outlook and describes how to learn to be optimistic.

Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway have discovered that bees learn to fly the shortest possible route between flowers even if they discover the flowers in a different order. In doing this they are effectively solving the challenging 'Travelling Salesman Problem' and despite their small brains are the first creatures discovered who can do this.

I have been piloting a radically different approach to meetings which I am calling "Egoless Meetings" which addresses three popular unwritten rules about good meeting practices which are unfortunately totally wrong. RULE 1 is that everybody gets to speak. RULE 2 is that discussions in themselves can be useful. RULE 3 is that when you meet you must work as a team not as individuals.

Team Beliefs are the fuel which can really energise or kill team effectiveness. Unfortunately this is often the most neglected aspect of a high-performing team initiative. In this article I remind people of the key beliefs of high-performing teams.

Most collaborative ventures don't turn out quite the way we envisage. It would be great if we could determine in advance if a particular collaborative project or joint venture will be worth the required investment. Here is a simple way you can assess the merits of any collaborative endeavour BEFORE you invest time, effort and money in failing to make it work.

Very interesting article in The Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize, Bacteria and the power of teamwork, which reveals the amazing ability of bacteria to "quorum sense" - i.e. know when they have critical mass to achieve their objective. Quorum Sensing is hugely important for human groups and one we often get badly wrong!

I was part of a fascinating panel session "Mobility, Teams, The Cloud and Collaboration" at the recent Mobile Cloud Summit (London: 21 September). The summit and the session was chaired by Jeffrey Peel of Quadriga Consulting and my co-panelists were Brian Caulfield of DFJ Esprit and Chris Horn of Movirtu.

Featured Article

The Huffington Post: Biohacking the Organization An excellent article on Bioteams by Doug Kirkpatrick, US Partner at NuFocus Strategic Group concludes: "The power and elegance of bioteaming is indisputable. Whether organizational leaders will detach themselves from the perceived security blanket of traditional, artificial hierarchy in order...

Social design inspired by nature: Positive Impact Magazine Excellent article by Positive Impact Magazine which reviews the growing field of Organizational Biomimicry and showcases Bioteams, the Biomimicry Institute and Honeybee Democracy. Nice examples of what we have learned from pigeons, bees, beetles, termites, geese, shrimps and even fungi....